Victory
by Lynse
Summary: It's more than just a game, in the end, but the only way to come out ahead is to rely on people who are practically strangers. One-shot Secret Quartet fic (also crosses with Miraculous Ladybug and Randy Cunningham:9th Grade Ninja) but told more from the sidelines, focusing on Jazz and Haley


A/N: Another tumblr prompt, another one-shot. This one's more of a sidelines Secret Quartet fic, focusing more on Haley and Jazz than the actual quartet. Standard disclaimers apply.

* * *

"Ooh, yeah, my boys just won!" Trixie exclaimed, punching the air. She turned to Jazz, grinning and holding out a hand. "Pay up, Smarty Pants."

Jazz huffed, crossing her arms. She hadn't needed to squint into the sunlight to see what Jake and Randy had pulled. "They were cheating. You cannot tell me that wasn't cheating."

"My homeboy can't be cheating if there ain't no rules against it," Trixie countered. "Back me up here, Haley."

Jake's little sister bit her lip. "Technically—"

"Technically?" Jazz interrupted. " _Technically, she's right_? Is _that_ what you're going to say? Really?" She rolled her eyes. "I shouldn't have agreed to let you be the referee."

"She's got better eyes than the rest of us," Spud pointed out. "Wasn't that what you said earlier?"

"And anyway, that totally wasn't planned, so it wasn't cheating." Howard crumpled up the empty bag of chips and shoved it into his pocket. "Planning ain't Randy's style. So just go ahead and admit that we won. Randy and Jake totally wonked Team Halloween's cheese."

Jazz sighed, knowing she was outnumbered here. She was Danny's only representative in their little audience, and Adrien had come alone unless you counted Plagg. "They aren't Team Halloween," she muttered.

"Um, hello? Ghost? Black cat?" Trixie was smirking. "They sure are. You shoulda known they couldn't stand up against a dragon and a ninja."

Jazz was about to try to retaliate again when the contestants of their little contest showed up. Adrien's hair was singed and the left shoulder of Danny's suit had been burned away, and Randy was missing his scarf, but no one looked too worse for the wear. "Everyone okay?" she asked, just to be sure.

"That was cheating," Danny complained as he shot a pointed look at Randy. Which meant everyone _was_ fine or someone would have said something immediately.

Jazz relaxed, and she noticed the others do so as well. The purpose of this little test had never been to beat anyone up, just to test out their abilities on a makeshift magical obstacle course as they raced around the island. They'd paired into twos to force them to be mindful of a partner—no one won until both teammates had crossed the finished line—and to give them backup when they came across something more atypical for them. It had been a way of keeping everyone on their toes. They might not always get a chance to fight together, and being able to fight well in different units was important.

It had devolved into a full-out two-on-two.

Taking bets had been Fu's idea, even though the magical guardian hadn't been around to witness the match.

Jazz should have known better than to agree. Really, she should have. But Danny had been all over it, confident in his abilities, and she'd watched Adrien fight as Chat Noir earlier and knew that he could hold his own, no matter what the course threw at them.

But it wasn't the course that had gotten them in the end.

Randy pulled off his mask, his ninja suit disappearing as quickly as Jake had dragoned down. "Not our fault you forgot we both had fire powers."

Adrien snorted and pulled some camembert out of his bag to feed Plagg. "I didn't know you could do that _and_ control the earth at the same time."

Randy grinned. "I've gotten better at that. The Sandjas have saved my butt more than once."

"No lie there."

" _Hey_!" Randy reached out to punch Howard in the arm. "I have saved you countless times."

"And I have saved _you_ and your sorry little secret just as many."

"Not really."

"You believe what you need to believe, Cunningham."

"Regardless," interjected Jazz, "the terms of the agreement were just to finish the course first, _not_ attack the opposing team."

"But not attacking the other team wasn't explicitly stated," Trixie cut in, "so Jake and Randy are in the clear. Haley said so, and she's ref. Besides, with some of these guys, you need to play a bit dirty to get ahead."

"Gee, thanks," Danny muttered. "You remember that when I ice these guys next time around."

"They do have a point," agreed Adrien mildly. "I don't mind conceding this round." The others looked surprised, and then he grinned and added, "Just means we'll spook them next time because they don't know what other tricks this cat still has in the bag."

"You're kidding, right?" Jake asked. "I mean, you have a magic cat thing, and that's, like, it, yo. That ain't gonna beat all the different kinds of magic I can do."

"I find that insulting." Plagg swallowed his cheese and zipped up to Jake's eye level. "For one, I'm a kwami, which you should know if you claim to be a guardian of the magical world. For another, you haven't even seen him use Cataclysm yet, and dragon eyes or not, we could take you in the dark."

"Yeah, but seeing in the dark—"

"Plagg's older than anyone else here." Adrien seemed to know what the kwami was getting at, even if no one else did. "Fu might have been around a while, but Plagg's still got millennia on him. Do you really want to discount him that easily?"

"We're fighting _you_ , not Plagg," countered Randy. "And, anyway, the Nomicon's got a whole lot of information—"

"And I could always just go ask someone in the Ghost Zone if I need to know anything, especially since Cujo doesn't mind taking messages for me."

"Well, Gramps—"

Jazz rolled her eyes and left the boys to their fighting. Trixie and Spud seemed too interested in it to move, but Haley joined her on the sandy beach a few metres away from them. "You still don't think this is a good idea?" she asked quietly.

Jazz bit her lip. "I think this still smells like a setup," she confessed. "I mean, everyone getting a mysterious message at the same time? When it still explains nothing? I expect that from Clockwork, and maybe Randy thinks it's par for the course from the Nomicon, but shouldn't Jake question the Dragon Council about something like this, when he hasn't had any interaction with anyone before? Or Adrien, no matter what 'secret mission' he apparently received from his Guardian? He's got a partner back in Paris, for crying out loud."

"He also said this isn't the first time one of them has been pulled for a secret mission," Haley reminded her. "And the Dragon Council will rarely show all their cards if they can help it. That's one of the reasons Councillor Chang could do as much as she did." Seeing Jazz's questioning look, Haley added, "Long story. Let's just say I learned not to envy Jake too much for being the American Dragon."

Jazz drew her knees up to her chest and hugged them. "So this doesn't feel off to you? At all? We're just a bunch of kids. If they really expect us to fight, shouldn't they at least tell us what we're going up against?"

"Maybe they think it's safer if we don't know all the details."

Jazz snorted. "Ignorance in battle is hardly a good thing. More likely, they don't know the details themselves. Whoever's really behind this, I mean. Because I highly doubt Clockwork, the Nomicon, the Dragon Council, and the Guardian all suddenly realized how very real this threat apparently is and decided to throw us all into this together." She sighed. "We should be in school. Instead, my parents think Danny and I are off getting a great educational experience courtesy of Vlad Masters, and there's no telling how long that lie will hold."

"Mom's covering for us," Haley said. "Dad won't suspect anything. And Adrien said that his father might not even notice if we deal with this quickly enough."

Jazz raised her eyebrows and looked at Haley. "He thinks his father won't notice that he left the country? Left the _continent_?"

Haley shrugged. "Something about a busy schedule and them rarely seeing each other, and he fixed something with the people he usually does see on a regular basis. And his family's rich."

"Still."

"He framed it as some fashion thing. Has to do a shoot when we get back to the NYC." Haley blew out a breath. "You guys should feel honoured, really. Randy being the Ninja, I could see him maybe wrangling an invitation to Draco Island, but the rest of you? You'll be lucky if they don't try to erase your memories after this."

Jazz didn't want to think about that possibility, especially when Haley talked about it so blithely. "You don't think this is dangerous, all of us leaving? Adrien left Ladybug in Paris, we're covered in Amity Park, and apparently there is no shortage of dragons in New York City, but who does Randy have in Norrisville?"

"A robot." At Jazz's incredulous look, Haley added, "Which is why Sun—my dragon master—will be running out there from time to time to check on things until we get back."

"Until they get back, you mean." Jazz had no illusions about how long she'd be allowed to tag along. "Once this starts, whatever it is…. They'll be on their own."

"They won't be on their own. They'll have each other. They'll win."

"Teamwork doesn't exactly ensure victory. We don't even know…." Jazz hated to bring this up to someone so young, but it had been preying on her mind since yesterday, when all this had started. It felt like it had been months ago now. "We don't even know if they'll all get through this."

"That's why we're here, isn't it? So they can train and learn each other's skills? They won't ever win if they don't know themselves."

"They won't win if they don't know who they're really fighting!"

"They will."

"How can you be so confident?"

Haley lay down so that she was staring up at the cloudless sky above them. "Because that's how this works. Someone sent that message to the others or something happened that made them realize what was coming, even if they don't know the details yet. That's why everyone's here. Our information might come slowly, but even if we're piecing it together from different sources, it'll come. And Jake's getting better about waiting before diving into a fight. They won't be going into this blind. They'll know their enemy as well as they know themselves by the time this is through."

"'If you know the enemy and know yourself, your victory will not stand in doubt,'" quoted Jazz. "'If you know Heaven and know Earth, you may make your victory complete.'"

She looked over to see Haley smiling. "That's right. I figure your brother has Heaven covered, with the ghost thing, and what he doesn't, Jake'll be able to figure out to make sure they have clear skies. And Randy and Adrien will know the lay of the land or be able to shape it to fit their needs. They're going to be unstoppable." Haley sat up, glanced behind her, and added, "Assuming they ever stop arguing."

Jazz laughed, finally feeling hopeful again, and climbed to her feet with Haley to go rejoin the others.


End file.
